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Green Day & Rock Band 3 Details Leaked

Posted on March 30th, 2010ShawnNo comments

Green Day Rock Band

PAX East is over and I have lot’s of news to share. First up, let’s dive into what I learned about the two upcoming Harmonix games, Green Day: Rock Band and Rock Band 3. Fortunately, due to my decision not to get a “Media” badge for PAX East, I acted as a typical gamer schlep. That also means I didn’t have to sign any non-disclosure agreements to get sneak peak access. I just got access through various means, and get to share what I know. So, here we go…

Green Day: Rock Band

Harmonix had a 5 song demo of the game setup in the Harmonix Lounge, which they would turn on a once or twice a day for no more than 30 minutes. Basically, the people waiting in line to play Rock Band songs got an opportunity to play Green Day songs, instead of the regular Rock Band 2 and downloadable songs. Fortunately, I was in the lounge twice when Green Day: Rock Band was turned on.

Songs

The demo that Harmonix brought contained 5 complete songs. American Idiot, Hitchin’ A Ride, Brain Stew/Jaded, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and one other.

Look and Feel

The instrument lanes, vocal lane, and colors looked very close (if not identical) to The Beatles: Rock Band. The characters in game, are obviously Green Day members. The song selection screen looks exactly like TB:RB, with Green Day colors swapped in. You get to see your instrument difficulty at the instrument screen, and get to change lefty/righty there as well. During song loading, we get to see some very basic 2-3 frame animations (like dancing bears or falling bombs), though now we get some sound effects added (again similar to TB:RB). I recall seeing a dancing bear with a snare drum march playing while a song was loading.

I Played the Game

I was waiting in line with my brother, planning to play System Of The Down’s Toxicity, when Eric Pope (the Harmonix MC for the weekend) gave us the good news that it was Green Day time. Xbox’s were swapped, and the system with GD:RB loaded to the hard drive was turned on. We watched (and I have video) Harmonix folks play Brain Stew/Jaded (a little better than they did at GDC), plus a group of people waiting in line play Hitchin’ A Ride. From what I saw, these songs are not easy. Although there’s quite a bit of repetition, there are lightning fast guitar and bass notes, and GD drums are nothing to scoff at.

Two other groups waiting in line opted to wait until the GD songs were over so they could do Limelight and Don’t Stop Believing, respectfully. I jumped on the opportunity to get up there with my brother to do my absolute favorite karaoke song, American Idiot. We grabbed two others to join us on stage to round out our band. I didn’t pay much attention to the monitors when we were on stage, since I needed to bring out my inner Billy Joe Armstrong essence. I can say, it was fun. Listening to the audio while we played American Idiot, and others playing the other songs, I believe I could here crowd sounds and additional sounds effects (like explosions) from the Bullet In A Bible album. I’m quite certain of that, which will make this game even more fun, and feeling like a real live GD performance.

Achievements are already in the game.

The so called demo of the game we witnessed, was much more than a demo. We witnessed two achievements unlock during gameplay at PAX. One for drumming and one for guitar, though they were not for 100% or FCing. I didn’t get close enough to see what they were, but they were new names, specifically related to Green Day and not generic rock Band achievements. Eric Pope, quickly came on stage saying, “Those aren’t achievements, there’s nothing to see here.”

Not an Easy FC

The Green Day Rock Band game will be much harder than most people expect. With machine gun speed of guitar, bass, and drum notes, the songs will be challenging to just about any player. For vocals, I got to sing American Idiot. If you like Billy Joe Armstongs voice, you will love singing Green Day in the game. The vocal charting to American Idiot is very accurate. I scored 98% on Expert on my first pass.

Rock Band 3

As for Rock Band 3 leaks, we learned that vocal harmonies will be in the game. To me, that’s not much of a leak since harmonies are already in Beatles and the upcoming Green Day. But the leak, during the PAX panel “An Awkward Hour with Harmonix’ Game Designers” was enough for boss man John Drake to come running into the room and keep a very close watch on the Harmonix panel to make sure their traps remained shut on other Rock Band 3 details.